The wonderful gang at ThingM (makers of the blinkM smart LED) have announced an interesting new product is in the works, the blink(1) programmable USB RGB LED status indicator. Plug the little open source nub into most any USB port – laptop, desktop, server, some Android phones, DD-WRT router – and then you can use apps (or create your own) to make the blink(1) LED light up to indicate an event. A tweet just mentioned me? Steady green light. Email from my wife? Three blue blinks. CPU overheating? Red alert!

From the ThingM blog:

ThingM has just launched a Kickstarter for “blink(1)”. A USB RGB LED that builds on our BlinkM Smart LED. It’s a super status light that packs three dimensions of information (color, brightness and pattern) into a single tiny package that fits into any USB port on nearly every device.
It makes it incredibly easy to connect any data source in the cloud or on your computer to a full-color RGB LED so you can know what’s happening without checking any windows, going to any websites, or typing any commands.

I can’t wait to get my hands on one – the Kickstarter is nearly funded, so I’m optimistic – to play around with the development tools. I’d love, for example, to have the Blink(1) tell me when a Renderman render has completed, or if I have a meeting in five minutes.

John Edgar Park likes to make things and tell people about it. He works in CG animation at DisneyToon Studios and writes for Make, Boing Boing, and other places online and in print. You can find him at jpixl.net and twitter @johnedgarpark — if you like that sort of thing.